The US Justice Department on Wednesday asked a federal judge to review the rules for handling 113 appeal cases by `war on terror` detainees being held at the US naval base prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court documents.

The `dark side` of US counter-terrorism took center stage Wednesday in the case of a mentally ill Pakistani woman accused of attacking US officers in Afghanistan.

A New York federal judge referred to allegations that the accused, Aafia Siddiqui, was abducted and tortured by US or allied forces prior to her extradition from Afghanistan in August.

Al-Qaeda`s first message to Barack Obama two weeks after his election to the US presidency shows a `panicked response` to his popularity, counterterrorism experts said Wednesday.

In an Internet message broadcast earlier in the day, Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman Zawahiri lashed out against Obama for being `the enemy of Islam and Muslims` and a `house Negro.`

The United States has no information that Osama bin Laden has died despite his continuing silence, the White House said Wednesday after the broadcast of a new message from al-Qaeda`s number two.

`I`d have to refer you to the intelligence community for that. I don`t believe that we have any intelligence that suggests that he is not living,` said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

A US judge on Wednesday ordered further psychiatric evaluation for a Pakistani woman he says is mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of attempted murder of US officers in Afghanistan.

Judge Richard Berman told the federal court in New York that Aafia Siddiqui, a US-educated neuroscientist extradited in August from Afghanistan, is `not currently competent to proceed.`

Spain is on full alert in case of a new attack by ETA in the wake of the arrest of the Basque separatist organisation`s alleged military chief, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcar said Wednesday.

Spain is on full alert in case of a new attack by ETA in the wake of the arrest of the Basque separatist organisation`s alleged military chief, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcar said Wednesday.

The suspected military chief of the Basque militant group ETA, Garikoitz Aspiazu, alias Txeroki, was arrested overnight in the French Pyrenees, French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Monday in a statement.

President-elect Barack Obama said he would shut down the `war on terror` internment camp at Guantanamo Bay and rebuild `America`s moral stature in the world,` in a major interview aired Sunday.

`I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that,` the Democrat, who takes office on January 20, told the CBS program `60 Minutes.`

PARIS, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Five suspected Islamist radicals are being investigated for alleged terrorism and arms offences following their arrest in eastern France, a judicial source said Saturday.

The five, one of Algerian nationality and the others French of Bosnian or Algerian origin, were placed under examination late Friday. Four of them were kept in custody.

They are suspected of criminal association in connection with terrorism and firearms offences, the source said.

KARACHI, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistani authorities now suspect that two suicide bombers were involved in a bloody attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's homecoming convoy, officials said Monday.

Officials had earlier said only one of the two blasts that killed 139 people in Karachi on Thursday was carried out by a suicide attacker, while the other was caused by a grenade hurled by an unknown assailant.

KARACHI, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto Monday visited the mausoleum of Pakistan's founder, making her second public outing in as many days after a bloody suicide attack on her convoy.

Wearing a white headscarf and black tunic, Bhutto was swamped by security men and media as she arrived at Karachi's Jinnah Mausoleum -- the resting place of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who led the country to independence in 1947.

MANAMA, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - The US Navy said that the shooting dead of two sailors in their barracks in Bahrain on Monday did not appear to be a terror attack and involved only American personnel.

'There are no indications of terrorism or a base intrusion. Initial reports indicate the incident involved US military personnel only,' it said in a statement.

Two sailors were killed and a third was critically wounded in the shooting on their base in Bahrain, which is headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.

ISLAMABAD, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistan's government rejected Monday former premier Benazir Bhutto's demand for international experts to help find those behind last week's devastating suicide attack.

'We reject the demand for involvement of foreign experts in the probe. Our own law enforcement agency personnel are capable of investigating the incident,' Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said.

'In the past also they have investigated attacks on presidents and prime ministers and the culprits were traced,' Sherpao told reporters.

ISLAMABAD, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistan's opposition vowed Monday to defy a ban on rallies in the run-up to general elections, proposed in the wake of last week's suicide bombing on Benazir Bhutto's convoy that killed 139 people.

The government is drawing up a code of conduct for political campaigning during the polls set for January and seen as a key step to restoring civilian rule in the Islamic nation of 160 million people.

MANAMA, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Two US sailors were shot dead and a third critically wounded in their barracks in the Gulf state of Bahrain on Monday, the US military said.

'Two sailors were fatally shot and one critically wounded... at approximately 5 am on October 22,' according to a statement from the US Navy's Fifth Fleet which is based in Bahrain.

'The shootings took place in the on-base barracks,' it said.

ISLAMABAD, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - The party of former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto vowed Monday to defy a planned ban on political rallies in the run-up to general elections seen as a key step to restoring civilian rule here.

The government plans to ban street marches in the wake of last week's suicide bombing that ripped through Bhutto's homecoming parade in Karachi, killing 139 people.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Benazir Bhutto on Sunday to condemn last week's suicide bombings that targeted the former Pakistan premier, her party said.

Rice 'expressed sympathy over the loss of innocent lives' in the bombings during Bhutto's homecoming parade that killed 139 people, her Pakistan People's Party said in a statement.

'Ms Rice said that she was heartened that Benazir Bhutto escaped the assassination attempt,' the statement said.

MADRID, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - One of the alleged masterminds of the 2004 Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people, has died in Iraq while fighting US-led coalition forces, a Spanish daily said Sunday.

Spain was informed several months ago of Daoud Ouhnane's death in Iraq in October or November 2006 by foreign intelligence agencies, El Pais newspaper said, quoting a confidential police report.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Benazir Bhutto on Sunday urged Pakistan to enlist international experts to help find those behind last week's suicide attack which turned the former premier's homecoming parade into bloody carnage.

Bhutto made the plea after visiting hospitals to meet some of those injured in Thursday's blasts, which killed 139 people and ruined her planned triumphant return to Pakistan after eight years in self-imposed exile.

MADRID, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Nobel prize winning author Doris Lessing said in an interview published Sunday that the September 11 attacks had not been 'so bad' when compared to Irish Republican Army action.

'September 11 was terrible, but if one re-examines the history of the IRA, what happened in the United States wasn't so bad,' Lessing, who captured this year's Nobel literature prize told Spain's leading El Pais daily.

The IRA waged a lengthy armed struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland. It declared an end to its armed campaign in 2005.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto on Sunday called for international help with the probe into last week's devastating twin blasts during her homecoming parade that killed 139 people.

'We want the government of Pakistan to seek the assistance of the international community,' she told a group of foreign reporters, including an AFP correspondent, at her home in Karachi.

'They have anti-terrorism experts who have the technical expertise to investigate attacks of this nature,' she said.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto called for international help Sunday with police investigations into last week's bomb blasts that killed 139 people in Karachi.

'We want the government of Pakistan to seek the assistance of the international community,' she told foreign reporters including AFP.

'They have anti-terrorism experts who have the technical expertise to investigate attacks of this nature,' she said.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto Sunday visited hospitals to meet those wounded in last week's devastating suicide attack that turned her homecoming parade into bloody carnage.

Bhutto was flanked by heavy security carrying automatic weapons as she made her first public outing since Thursday's blasts in Karachi, which killed 139 people and ruined her planned triumphant return after eight years in exile.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto visited a hospital Sunday to meet those injured in last week's devastating suicide attack that turned her homecoming parade into bloody carnage.

Bhutto was flanked by heavy security carrying automatic weapons as she made her first public outing since Thursday's blasts in Karachi, which killed 139 people and ruined her planned triumphant return after eight years in exile.

LONDON, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto has 'only herself to blame' for the deadly suicide attack on her homecoming parade, opposition politician Imran Khan said Sunday.

The former Pakistan cricket captain said Bhutto had made herself an assassination target by striking a deal with President Pervez Musharraf which 'deliberately sabotaged the democratic process.'

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto left a Karachi hospital Sunday where she visited those wounded in last week's deadly suicide attack on her homecoming parade, an AFP correspondent said.

About 100 supporters cheered Bhutto, who was making her first public appearance in the streets of Karachi since the bombings that killed 139 people.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Hundreds of protesters burned tyres and hurled stones in southern Pakistan for a third day Sunday over an attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's convoy that killed 139 people.

Around 10 groups, each of around 50 people, took to the streets in a stronghold of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party in the southern city of Karachi, an AFP correspondent said.

Some hurled rocks at passing vehicles while others torched piles of tyres, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air in the run-down Lyari neighbourhood of the port city.

MALE, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - A rise in Islamic militancy poses an unprecedented threat to the Maldives' status as South Asia's most upmarket holiday destination, but the government is determined to beat the extremists.

The first concrete sign of trouble in the archipelago traditionally seen as the holiday-maker's paradise came last month, when 12 foreign tourists including a honeymooning British couple were wounded in a bomb attack.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Benazir Bhutto bears the responsibility for the deaths of 139 people in an attack on her homecoming parade by exposing them to danger for the sake of her own 'personal theatre', her estranged niece said.

Newspaper columnist and poet Fatima Bhutto, the granddaughter of late Pakistani premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also told AFP in an interview that her aunt's return from exile would plunge the country further into turmoil.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - The bloodbath at Benazir Bhutto's homecoming has pushed nuclear-armed Pakistan to crisis point, both politically and in its US-backed battle against Al-Al Qaeda and the Taliban, analysts said.

Her carnage-strewn return from exile deepened the faultlines that threaten the Islamic republic of 160 million people, which has lurched from one existential threat to another in its six decades of independence.

KARACHI, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistani police were questioning three people on Sunday over an attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's homecoming procession that killed 139 people, an investigator said.

The men were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade in Karachi on Thursday night, seconds before a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people, he said.

KARACHI, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistani police took three people in for questioning on Saturday over an attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's homecoming procession that killed 139 people, an investigator said.

The men were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade in Karachi on Thursday night, seconds before a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people, he said.

KARACHI, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistani police took three people in for questioning Saturday over an attack on former premier Benazir Bhutto's homecoming parade that killed 139 people, an investigator said.

The men had links to a car from which one of the attackers threw a grenade into the parade in Karachi seconds before a suicide bomber blew himself up, he said.

Investigators also quizzed seven militants in jails in Karachi for possible information on Thursday night's blasts, added the investigator.

ISLAMABAD, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistani newspapers urged Saturday political parties to unite to fight religious extremism in the wake of the nation's worst suicide bombing that killed 139 people.

Papers warned that the rise of extremism was the biggest challenge facing the Islamic nation of 160 million people as it attempts to return to democracy with general elections due in January.

'It is even more evident now that moderate forces should join hands and work harder to fight the forces of extremism,' the widely published Urdu-language Jang newspaper said.

KARACHI, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistan probed Saturday a list of possible suspects given by former premier Benazir Bhutto after a suicide assassination bid that killed 138 people and bloodied her return from exile.

Bhutto said she had sent President Pervez Musharraf the names of three people she accused of involvement in Thursday's blast, which ripped through a crowd of hundreds of thousands who welcomed her back to Karachi.

WASHINGTON, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Group of Seven finance leaders on Friday praised the Financial Action Task Force for its role in uncovering alleged money laundering and other illicit finance related to Iran.

'We remain committed to fighting money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit financing involving similar risks to financial markets, G7 finance ministers and central bankers from the world's seven richest nations said in a statement after a one-day meeting here.